"So what you're saying is that you lost your hand in a sword fight," Clara said skeptically.

"Yes!" the Doctor said enthusiastically. "Technically, my right hand is around 900 years younger than the rest of my body!"

"Riiight. And then some meta-thing happened- "

"Human / Time Lord metacrisis," the Doctor supplied helpfully.

"And he grew out of the hand," Clara continued, ignoring the Doctor. That was just best sometimes if you ever wanted to get to the point of things. "And then you left him on a parallel world with this Rose person who you used to travel with because he's part human."

"Precisely!"

"Right. I have two questions. One, how in the world did you manage to not lose more than just your hand in a sword fight?"

"I will have you know, Clara, that I am an expert swordsman!"

"Doctor, sometimes I think you can't even walk properly!" Clara exclaimed incredulously.

"That is all to throw people off, trick them into revealing their evil plots, et cetera," the Doctor replied, smoothing down his jacket in an almost preening manner.

"And that's why you hit your head on the kitchen cabinet the other day?"

"That door was open!"

"You were the one opening it!"

"Can you two please shut up?!" the other Doctor snapped, opening his eyes to glare over at them. He had been standing quietly, leaning slightly with his forehead pressed against the wall where the door once was, since the explanation of his existence had begun.

Clara immediately closed her mouth, pressing her lips into a line.

"I thought we'd learned the last time that leaning on the wall doesn't fix things," the Doctor said quietly.

"Please, just be quiet for a few minutes. Can you just do that?"

The corridor fell into silence.

"Up there, too," the other Doctor sighed, opening his eyes again to gesture at the Doctor's forehead. "Put a damn wall up, for crying out loud. You project so loudly, I'm surprised that I wasn't getting a bloody play-by-play from Tony's World."

"Oh. Sorry." Clara was surprised to see that the Doctor look properly horrified. Make that three questions then, she thought.

All was quiet again for a few minutes. The TARDIS even seemed to be trying to help; there wasn't a creak, groan or whisper. The ever present hum even seemed muted.

"Thanks," the other Doctor at last, opening his eyes. He sighed. "Well, the good news is that the connection is strong enough that I can still feel them faintly if I concentrate. The bad news is that they're about to wake up and aren't going to be happy to find us both gone..." He trailed off and shook his head quickly like he was clearing his mind. "So! Clara Oswald, you had another question?"

"Wait, who -" the Doctor started.

"Ah ah ah - Clara was first," the other Doctor held up a finger in a scolding manner.

"Did you really come from a hand?" Clara asked, staring at the finger he was holding up.

"Yup," the other Doctor replied, popping the 'p' and rolling back on his heels a bit. He held up his right hand and wiggled his fingers.

"Okay then... What am I supposed to call you? You're both the Doctor? That might get confusing in the yelling and running situations that I've become accustomed to."

"Oh. Huh. I don't know," the other Doctor mused. "It hasn't really come up. We just call him 'the other one' or 'the other me'."

"The other one?! That's rude!" the Doctor protested.

"Well, Tony's taken to calling you Doctor 1.0," the other one snickered. "Besides, rude and not ginger, kind of my thing."

"You must have some sort of human-y name since you're off doing... human-y things."

"You don't really need a 'human-y name' to get laid, if that's what you mean."

"That is - I know that! That is not what I meant!" the Doctor sputtered, turning red. The other Doctor was grinning, hands stuffed in his pockets.

"Doctor John Theta Tyler," the other Doctor answered after letting his counterpart embarrass himself in front of his companion for a bit. "But no one really calls me by any of those. Well, except for official legal-y things. Well, that and the tabloids. They called me 'JT' at first - that one wasn't to bad, but then it was 'Johnny Wander' since I do tend to meander a bit. 'Where has Johnny Wander gone now?' 'Johnny Wander off to America alone? Is it trouble in paradise for our Vitex Rose?' That sort of thing. Actually! Johnny Wander is a name of a lovely little webcomic in your universe! Wonderful slice of life type things. I haven't checked if it's in Tony's World or not, but - "

"Doctor," Clara interrupted.

"Ah, sorry, yes, I tend to... ramble." He tugged on his earlobe, looking sheepish. "Anyway! I honestly don't know how well I'd respond to it in a crisis situation, although, if we were running and yelling, you'd probably need both of us anyway, so just think of it as a shortcut."

"Speaking of names!" the Doctor interjected before Clara could reply. "Who were you contacting in Pete's World? There shouldn't be anyone you can contact like that! And why are you calling it Tony's World?"

"We started calling it Tony's World as a joke and it sort of stuck. And I was contacting my children."

"...your what." The Doctor was staring at his counterpart, his face suddenly very serious.

"My children, Doctor," the other Doctor replied. "Rose and I have twins. They're two and a half."

"And... and they're -"

"Mostly Time Lord. Dominant genes."

Clara looked back and forth between the Doctors nervously. This whole thing was so very very weird. I mean, this new Doctor basically was the Doctor, right? Did this mean the Doctor had kids now? Actually, he had mentioned a granddaughter before now that she thought about it.

"We're not alone," the Doctor said finally.

"We're not alone," the other Doctor confirmed, his face breaking into a brilliant grin.